"
The difference between vegetables and human beings is that only humans can love."

The trouble with this definition by the head of the family currently in the spotlight at the modest walk-up theater that the 29th
Street Rep calls home, is that his family's love falls into the legume category. Mothering comes with
heavy doses of punishment and little affection. Communication is lost in a din of empty talk.
Pregnancy grows from ashes (literally!) rather than affection.

As in Pig, seen two years ago, playwright Tammy Ryan takes us to an
unnamed working class neighborhood
in Queens. (Ed. Note: In case you're from out of town, one of New York City's five boroughs
whose citizens are often disdainfully sneered at as "the bridges and tunnel crowd" -- code words for a tag of "low in cultural sophistication").
As in that play the family we meet is hardly happy-go-lucky.
Unlike Pig, or any of the other gritty and
gripping dramas produced by this company, the realistic and well-paced first act turns into
a surrealistic, repetitious mess after the intermission.

Even the excellent performances can't avoid a sense of a play whose characters have lost their
way. Brigit (Lois Markle), is just right as a mother who's
failed her daughters and herself with her penchant for burying her feelings in a non-nonsense
veneer. The daughters growing up under her often punitive regime are:
Toney (Moira MacDonald) an aneurexic virgin bent on escape via a law degree,
Moira (Elizabeth Elkins) unhappily pregnant, April (Paula Ewin) the outspoken daughter brought
back by dad's ( Edward Cannan) sudden death .

As the vegetable garden growing from the dead father's ashes "planted" in the basement of
this dysfunctional family home, (there seems to be no other kind worth writing about these
days), grows out of control, so does Ms. Ryan seem to lose the rudder to steer her cast
towards a meaningful conclusion. She lets her garden's tentacles mysteriously reach through the
floor of the dining room and we no longer have one pregnant woman but four. Since the
realistic laying bare of the abuses that have contributed towards the crippling each of these
women emotionally, continues throughout, the surrealism of the second act malfunctions like
the characters' lives. It's too bad, because the dialogue and the action of the first act is filled
with
promise. It would be a lot easier to come away satisfied if the missteps came first.

As already mentioned, the cast is very fine. Miss Elkins and Moira MacDonald who made
outstanding contributions to last season's excellent Bobby Supreme (see link), again
prove themselves to be fine actresses. Edward Cannan as the father whose ashes kick up the dust
of over thirty years of buried grievances, epitomizes a particularly irritating, non-listening
macho male.

Even if not disappointing, Vegetable Love, is, like all this company's plays, not intended
as a
commercial fun show but true to the mission for producing "daring, thought-provoking"
plays. Part of being daring is, of course, to dare to stumble occasionally.

Consumer Note: This is not a house for the handicapped -- besides the walkup
location, the
steps leading to the 60 seats are rather steep. If you go on a hot night, be sure you have a bottle
of water at the ready and dress light. The air conditioning is apparently too noisy for the actors,
and since the night I attended was a hot one, the discomfort index was at an all-time high . The muggy heat is bound to abate before the end of this show and by the time the company's season continues.
It's also worth mentioning that this is a theater experience that's affordable to anyone who can afford
to go to a movie--- there's even a Thursday pay-what-you will night!.